An Appreciation

How to explain Venus Ray? Born in a basement 3 years ago, and emerging blinking into the daylight on rare occasions since, Venus Ray are certainly a strange proposition. In a musical universe where everything looks and sounds the same, we should treasure the rare moments of difference. This band rolled off a whole different conveyor belt, emerging misshapen and unique, unfamiliar and strange, but loveable once you got to know the details.

The key to understanding them is to listen. The album has been described as a 'chamber record', a document of a particular moment. The tape is filled with the atmosphere around the group, with external pressure and internal tensions. It's not quite like listening to a simple record of collapse, a Big Star 3rd, or Neil Young's Tonight's The Night. The mood swings are erratic and the emotional range is broad; this contains moments of joy and stupidity, as well as alienation. The melancholy is always laced with humour, and the elation always grounded in a sense of impending disaster.

Despite their excursions into rock'n'roll meltdown, Venus Ray are sometimes compared to the "alt. country" movement, and perhaps they do relate to it in the same way that the electric Chicago blues of Bo Diddley and Muddy Waters related to original acoustic country blues. Venus Ray's music is essentially urban, filled with the sounds of the city. And what is fascinating here is the overflow, the uncontrolled outpourings, the overload. As Diggory Kenrick says, 'It's like we forgot to flush the toilet'. There's a lot to admire around the porcelain.

Sam Charters, August 2000

A daily selection of these and other Venus Ray tracks are now playable on the Venus Ray Reel to Reel

Click here to for a selection of critic's responses.


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